State of the art: Philip Tinari believes in the right time to do things

Photo: Shang Wen

As the director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing's thriving 798 art district, Philip Tinari believes in the right time to do things. "In art, we have the cycles of artists becoming discovered," he says. "They go from unknown artists to emerging artists and finally major artists. As an institution, we want to show artists at the right time in their career."

Philadelphia-born Tinari, 33, was introduced to contemporary Chinese art in 2000 at the age of 19 when he, as a Putonghua-speaking student, was chosen to be the campus guide for Xu Bing, a Chongqing-born contemporary artist who was in the US visiting Duke University for an installation exhibition. The friendship did not stop there. A year later, when Tinari came to Beijing as a Fulbright fellow at Peking University, he met more Chinese artists. "It was only in the last five to 10 years that Chinese contemporary art has become a legitimate field," he says. "In that way, I feel I was a little bit early."

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